From the living rooms of gaming nerds to the world’s stage, commanding hundreds of thousands in audience members across the globe, eSports has seemingly been on an unstoppable rise over the past few years.
During the second half of the last decade, professional video gaming became a viable career path; turning young gamers into worldwide superstars and significantly raising the profile of online battle royale extravaganzas like League of Legends, Call of Duty, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and the ubiquitous Fortnite.
As we begin a new decade, however, will eSports continue on its global boom?
Looking for world domination
Yes, if the Overwatch League has anything to do with it. The OWL began their third season earlier this year, selling out an almost 2000 seat venue just opposite New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden in the process. A similar occurrence happened in Dallas, leaving Jon Spector, Vice President of the league, to declare it’s “everything we could have hoped for”.
This year, the OWL has world domination in their sights. These sold out matches were the first of 52 events on their 2020 schedule, which will see competitive gaming spread across a total of 20 different arenas in North America, Europe and Asia. It’s the first time an eSports league has attempted such a challenging regular-season schedule, and if it pays off it could see them rise from being comparative underdogs to the league-to-watch moving forward.
2020 tournaments
Last year, eSports tournaments seemed to hit fever pitch, with both the Fortnite World Cup and The International (DotA2) setting brand new records for awarding the biggest prizes in eSports history
This year, it wouldn’t be overstating things to say that we can expect more of the same, as both of these popular tournaments will return, alongside a raft of others that are set to further cement eSports’ place in history, including the similarly monolithic Call of Duty Championship Weekend (TBA) and the 2020 League of Legends World Championship (TBA).
Many of the finals events are still TBA, but here’s a summary of the eSports tourney action for 2020 so far:
- Apex Legends ALGS Major 1 – March 13-15th
- Counter-Strike Global Offensive ESL Pro League Season 11 Finals – April 10-12th
- League of Legends LCS Spring Finals – April 18-19th
- CS:GO ESL One Rio Major – May 11-24th
- DotA 2 ESL One Birmingham – May 29-31st
- DotA 2 ONE Esports Singapore Major – June 20-28th
- DotA 2 The International Main Event 2020 – August 18-23rd
- CS:GO IEM Melbourne – August 18-23rd
- League of Legends LEC Summer Finals – August 29-30th
- Counter-Strike Global Offensive Winter Major – November 2-15th
- DreamHack Winter – November 27-29th
Crossing into the Sporting Arena
According to the Managing Director for the NBA 2K League eSports division, there has been “tons” of interest from eSports organizations, who could help expand the global presence of the National Basketball Association’s eSports league from 2020 onwards.
Presenting at the recent NBA 2K League Draft in New York, MD Brendan Donohue explained “in terms of the interest…I can tell you we’ve had tons of it”. However, the league isn’t “just seeking a cheque here”, but long term partners who can “help scale this league”.
In 2019, the NBA 2K League hosted events outside of NY for the first time. 2020 is set to build on that momentum. The league has already held qualifying events in both London and Seoul, and there are further international dates to come.
Shanghai’s Gen. G have already created a team for this year’s NBA 2K competition – the Gen. G TIgers of Shanghai. The first competitors outside of North America have also become the first non NBA-affiliated franchise in the league. It’s a partnership that Donohue believes will open the doors for the wider eSports community, since there are also Gen.G teams in League of Legends, Fortnite, Overwatch and PUBG.
Going back to grassroots level
2020 could also be the year where the die hard gamers of the original Console Generation (late 80s-early 90s) get their chance to participate in global eSports competitions.
Lowkey.gg, a venture-backed company from Harvard grad Jesse Zhang, aims to provide adults with the opportunity to compete against other players of a similar skill level, in games like League of Legends, albeit not for the cash that pro leagues are playing for – “the main thing is the prestige or the clout”.
Appealing more to Gen X and Gen Y than today’s Millennials, Lowkey.gg will focus on providing its customers with an “almost subscription-like experience” that will also offer some form of infrastructure and platform for gamers in the workforce to play outside of office hours.
Photographs by Pxhere / Philipp Keller